The Impact of Multiple Forces and Ideas
Associate Professor of Art Todd Arsenault '99 in his studio in Goodyear Hall, Dickinson's studio art building. Photo by Dan Loh.
Office Hours: Associate Professor of Art Todd Arsenault
by Tony Moore
Associate Professor of Art Todd Arsenault ’99 earned his M.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design. He works primarily with painting, drawing and digital media, often merging digital technology with traditional studio practices. His work has been shown throughout the U.S. and Canada, and he has had solo exhibitions in New York and Spain. His work is represented by Massimo Audiello Gallery in New York and Galeria Fucares in Madrid.
With AI, is art doomed, left for dead at the side of the road, a thing of the past soon to only be known through a sad nostalgia reminiscent of my dad bemoaning the demise of cursive? Or do people who even think these things drive you crazy, knowing that the human drive to create will prevail and the human touch will be ever-present?
The design and phrasing of this question cracks me up, but the hyperbole is on the money for the current moment. There are many things that scare me about AI, but I have to say that art is the least of them. The whole AI thing as related to art in terms of something like painting does drive me a bit crazy, but when considering art as a whole, the conversation is more complex.
Throughout history we have seen the impact of technology on art and how with the emergence of any new technology there are those who see a potential usefulness and those who see a threat to accepted standards. The main thing with AI as related to art and creativity is how many artists it might displace in fields such as animation and illustration and what will be the ultimate impact when the machine is generating our cultural content. The internet was the death knell for the creative underground of physical making and human connection that used to thrive outside of the mainstream. I wonder if AI can undo some of that by driving more people back to ways of making that engage our minds and senses.
I have seen more and more students take an interest in the handmade over the last decade due to a combination of technological burnout and the fact that making something by hand suddenly seems exotic. I’m seeing art students have a backlash over AI in a way that I think could lead to an even higher investment and value in art, music, film and literature that exhibits the human touch.
Given your experience working with both traditional and digital media, not to mention sound, what makes Dickinson the perfect place for students to inhabit the studio and figure out where their own artistic voices might take them?
So much of what we want our students to do at Dickinson, in the spirit of the liberal arts, is to make connections between disciplines. Art making is predicated around responding to the world we inhabit and considering the larger impact of multiple forces and ideas. So much of being an artist is a process of experimentation driven by curiosity. We encourage our students to follow their curiosity and develop a dynamic approach to thinking and making.
While limitations can be useful for experienced artists, cultivating your voice requires learning from a process that is open. This is likely not dissimilar to gathering data or conducting an experiment in science by working from broad to specific. We encourage students to become familiar with a range of mediums, consider the unique nature of how each medium can communicate, and explore how mediums can be combined. Developing a voice takes time, as the studio is both a mental and physical space, and we want our students to learn how to extend the process and work through iterations of ideas that lead to important questions and bigger breakthroughs.
When you’re in the studio or classroom, or at one of your exhibitions in various corners of the globe, is there ever a moment where you catch yourself thinking, "This is exactly why I became an artist"?
Absolutely. This happens constantly and especially with teaching. With my own work, I would say that working in the studio is a bit of a roller coaster, as there is so much preparation—stretching canvas, mixing colors, scraping old paint off a palette—it can be difficult to get to the more fulfilling parts of making art. When you do get to the moment of putting brush to canvas, it’s rarely the romantic vision that played out in your mind. That’s what makes it all the more rewarding when something interesting finally happens. Sometimes it feels like a big breakthrough and other times it’s something minor, but it’s enough to see that the stubbornness it took to get there was rewarded—the moments that make you realize why you do this.
These moments happen with teaching constantly and are why I love it. Like any language, in teaching art you are breaking things down into fundamental elements so that something more complex can be formed. There is nothing better than seeing students have those breakthrough moments when they discover how the components of the drawing language work together to make something with a high level of accomplishment. There is an awe as they look at the finished work and they can't quite believe it was from their hand, which is highly rewarding as a teacher.
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Published May 29, 2025